[nine_k]

Indeed so, but that would require a few months worth of work from the reader, unfortunately.

(I have a t-shirt with a lambda in a circle, reminiscent of the anarchist emblem, and words "no class, no state". It's definitely possible to explain to a passer-by who never studied FP what it refers to, but not in such a way that the joke remained funny. Possibly the same deal is with the bumper sticker saying "my other car is cdr".)

[codebje]

"Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind." - E. B. White.

[tmtvl]

Unexplained humour dies over time. Think of the classic 'a dog walks into an inn and says "I think I'll open the other one"'.

[snackbroken]

Some observational humor is timeless. Consider this entry from the same collection of Sumerian proverbs: "The dog understands 'Take it!', but it does not understand 'Put it down!'"[0] later repopularized as "No Take, Only Throw"[1].

[0] https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/proverbs/t.6.1.05.html#t6105.p... [1] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/no-take-only-throw

[Supermancho]

Contemporary rephrasing: "<InsertSubject> can be dissected, like a frog. It turns out that nobody is very interested and the frog dies of it."

[DaiPlusPlus]

> a lambda in a circle

How often do people think you're a Half-Life fan instead?

[nine_k]

Likely never. The Half-Life has the lambda with the top crooked, neatly inscribed in a circle [1]. The anarchist version has everything straight, and with the three sticks protruding out of the circle (like the A would). The visual rhyme is obvious.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Freeman#/media/File:Gor...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_symbolism#/media/Fil...

[dagurp]

or Aphex Twin

[tialaramex]

The CS understanding of "No class, no state" is just about at the edge of something Aphex Twin might care about. But the stylized A really isn't that similar to a Lambda